The PLTA gives you the confidence to answer any pro-abortion challenge.

How do you convince the skeptic?  What do you say to the screaming pro-abort?  Need help?  Then maybe the Pro-Life Training Academy (PLTA) is for you.

The Pro-Life Training Academy equipped us to answer tough questions about abortion and taught the science and logic behind the pro-life position.  The Pro-Life Training Academy is a great resource that every pro-life group should take advantage of!  (Claire Chretien, U of Alabama)

No matter what your role in the pro-life movement, we train you to articulate and defend the pro-life position, even in a hostile environment.  This spring, we took the PLTA to Lexington (Kentucky), Tuscaloosa (Alabama) and Auburn (Alabama).

Would you like to us to train your pro-life group?

If your activism puts you in the line of fire, this training is for you.  Maybe you are a group of pro-life activists who frequent the local abortion facility, like our audience in Lexington.  Perhaps you are preparing to show abortion photos in public, like our audience in Tuscaloosa and Auburn.  Perhaps you lead a group of high-school pro-lifers who need to learn the basics.  Either way, the PLTA is for you!

We learned the facts about abortion, the reasoning behind the arguments, and the most effective strategies for changing hearts and saving lives on our campus.  (Peter Ascik, U of Georgia)

We spend a lot of time on role-playing.  We don’t just tell you how; we show you how and help you practice.  We don’t just care how much you know in your head; we care how well you can convince others.  That’s what you care about!

Course Outline:

• Standing on the shoulders of giants.  Listen to those who came before.
• Modulated conflict is your friend.  Do not fear it.  Embrace it.  Use it.
• What is it?  The slam-dunk scientific certainty that life begins at conception.
• But when is life important?  The philosophical case for personhood at conception.
• Three steps to success:  Columbo Questions, Trot out the Toddler, and SLED.
• Hard questions:  Rape, incest, life of the mother.
• The genocide claim.  Abortion is not just another evil.

Would you like to host a PLTA in your city?  Please call us and we’ll set the date!

Kate Kennamer uses abortion photos to confront students with the truth that abortion is a horrifying act of violence.

We know that babies are saved.  But God tells us their stories in unexpected places.

“I know that guy from somewhere.”

Kate Kennamer is a former staff member and long-time CBR volunteer.  She was having lunch in a local eatery with her family not long ago.  She kept looking at the waiter.  Why was his face so familiar?

Abortion pictures at the U of Tennessee gave this young man the resolve to be that champion for his little sister … and her baby.

Finally, she couldn’t take it any more.  “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Turns out, he had been thinking the same thing.  “I was thinking that we have met somewhere.”

But where?  Finally, Kate remembered.  “Did you talk to somebody about abortion over at UT for about 3 hours one afternoon?”

“Yes, that’s where we met!  I was hoping I would run into you somewhere, but I didn’t know how to reach you.”

Soon after their encounter on campus, this young man’s 17-year-old sister had revealed to the family that she was pregnant.  Big brother was ready.

“I don’t want you to think that I’m pro-life or anything … but I couldn’t let her get that abortion.  I kept thinking about those pictures and I couldn’t let her do it.”

Of course, big brothers don’t have ultimate control over these matters.  But so many  young women are desperate for somebody to give them some option other than death.  So often, a woman in crisis just wants somebody to be her champion, not only for herself but for her child as well.  Abortion pictures at the University of Tennessee gave this young man the resolve to be that champion for his little sister … and her baby.

Every week at George Mason University (GMU), a mobile ultrasound clinic from A Best Chioce (ABC) offers free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds to women on campus.  Link to story here.  ABC explains why:

Ultrasound gives a woman an opportunity to bond with her baby early on, and 8 out of 10 abortion-minded women choose life after seeing their baby on ultrasound.  Women attending college are the most vulnerable to the deceptive lure of abortion, so we realize that a pro-life presence on college campuses is vital.  Sharing the truth will allow us to witness many lives saved.

Here’s something great:  By supporting CBR, you helped make this ministry possible!

Two years ago, we made GMU a priority for pro-life activism.  Our goals were to

• recruit students who would restart pro-life activism on campus,
• bring the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) to GMU, and
• encourage a wide range of pro-life projects.

It was the Pro Life on Campus hat trick!

• Read stories of GAP at GMU here, here, and here.
• New pro-life activism here, here, and here.
• Now, the GMU Students for Life (SFL) are hosting a mobile ultrasound and pregnancy resource center on campus every week!  Link to story here.

ABC is the only mobile ultrasound and pregnancy resource center in the DC area.  Executive Director Angela Clarke and Medical Director Dr. Kirsten Ball both played key roles in helping us restart the GMU SFL.  Now, the GMU SFL is hosting ABC’s mobile ultrasound unit every week.  Cooperation … what a concept!

Explanatory note:  On most campuses, non-student groups like CBR and ABC can’t just show up and occupy space.  We have to reserve that space.  Under most circumstances, we can’t just reserve the space ourselves; we have to be hosted by some on-campus department or student organization.  That’s why GMU SFL is critical.

Because you helped us get GMU SFL back on its feet in 2011, babies are being saved today.  It’s the pro-life double-whammy:

• Show people the truth … Make them more horrified of abortion.
• Offer resources and support … Make them less terrified of an unplanned pregnancy.

People choose life when they are more horrified of abortion than they are terrified of unplanned pregnancy.  We have to do two things: (1) show people the truth and (2) offer them help.

Kermit Gosnell is not an isolated case.  More horror stories are coming to the fore.  World Net Daily reports on video released by Life Dynamics, who interviewed three workers at an abortion clinic in Houston, Texas owned and operated by late-term abortionist Douglas Karpen.  Excerpt:

When the baby survived the abortion procedure, Edge [one of those interviewed] reported, sometimes the  abortionist would plunge a surgical instrument through the soft spot on the  baby’s skull into the brain. Other times it happened by “twisting the head off the neck with his own bare hands.”

A surgical instrument into the torso also was used to end lives, she said.

The World Net Daily report did not reveal the name of the abortion clinic.  That detail was provided in a later release by Operation Rescue.

Intervew (no graphic images):

Praying to end abortion.

He heard God say, “Don’t worry about it.  I’ve already sent you the money.”

In Tuscaloosa, I asked a few men and women to help bring GAP to the U of Alabama and Auburn U.  During the Q&A, Bill Overstreet, the pastor at Capstone Church, pledged to raise $2,000 by the end of the week.  He said he felt God leading him to pledge that specific amount.

I nodded in joyful thanks, because we needed his help.  But about the “God told me” thing, I’m always skeptical.  People often use it as a shield to deflect criticism, “If you disagree with me, you are fighting with God, because God told me …”  You know the drill.

Also, I’m skeptical because God has given His people more than enough resources to end abortion tomorrow, but too few of His people “feel” God leading them to do anything about it.  Based on the actions of His people, either (a) God doesn’t care about abortion very much at all, or (b) He is calling His people to act and they are ignoring that call.

Anyway, I was thankful that this pastor … or God, as it were … had agreed to help.

The next day, Pastor Overstreet was walking his neighborhood, asking God whom he should approach for help with that $2,000 pledge.  He heard God say, “Don’t worry about it.  I’ve already sent you the money.”

When he returned from his walk, he saw a letter on his desk from a man in Texas who used to be a member at Capstone.  He wrote that he felt led of God to send a check to the church for a special need.  He didn’t know what the need was, but he was sure Pastor Overstreet would know.  Along with the letter was a check for $2,000, the exact amount of the pledge!

Yes, Virginia, there is a God.  And he bears gifts for His people.  And He is calling His people to end abortion.

BTW, we still need another $2,500 to cover our Alabama GAP expenses.  Perhaps you have also heard from God and your check is already in the mail.  Or maybe you’re just behind and need to catch up.  Ever think of that?  Your gift today (click here) will allow us to schedule another GAP.  Thank you so much for answering God’s call.

BSFL Vice-President Claire Chretien speaks to the media. Successful social reformers use modulated conflict to focus attention on injustice.

Creating and Exploiting Modulated Conflict

Historically, social reformers have not feared conflict.  They embraced conflict, even created it, to focus public attention on injustice.  They did it knowing their actions would invite persecution from a culture that was complicit or complacent about injustice.

The Bama Students for Life (BSFL) are masters at creating modulated conflict and using that conflict to focus public attention on abortion.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said

… I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.”  I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.
***
… so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies [i.e., annoyances or irritants] to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism …  The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.

At the U of Alabama, BSFL and CBR annoyed and irritated people who were complicit or complacent about abortion, people who desperately wanted us to leave them alone.  But we didn’t leave them alone.  We focused their attention on injustice, knowing that they would dislike us for having done so.  Based on the media coverage and the huge crowds of angry people, we certainly succeeded!

Media Coverage for GAP at U of Alabama

Television Coverage

1. Controversial abortion display stirs controversy on UA campus
2. Pro-life display on Univ. of Alabama campus stirs strong emotions
3. Controversial display ignites abortion debate (video report)

Newspaper/Online

1. Student group displays graphic abortion photos on UA campus (poll) (positive poll results!)

Crimson White (student newspaper)

1. Anti-abortion group sponsors ‘extremely graphic’ display on Quad (news article)
2. Anti-abortion groups should back up opinions with facts (op-ed)
3. Our View: Bama Students for Life should examine the language they use (op-ed)
4. Students sound off about abortion displays (news article)
5. BSL’s belief in their own infallibility has cost them credibility in this debate (op-ed)
6. Anti-abortion proponents only restrict freedom of choice for American women (op-ed)
7. BSL, Speer both fail in effectively messaging their case on abortion rights (op-ed)
8. How the pro-life movement can make win-win situations out of abortion debates (op-ed)
9. Consider the issue, not the language (pro-life op-ed)
10. BSFL’s images necessary to change culture (pro-life op-ed)
11. University’s public assembly laws must be re-examined (op-ed)
12. Changing from ‘pro-choice’ to ‘pro-abortion’ (the only coherent pro-abortion op-ed we saw, followed by a flood of name-calling and ad hominem attacks, with lots of comments from FAB)
13. Insulting the public not conducive to campus abortion debate (op-ed)
14. Counter-protesters were told to stop handing out fliers, student says (news article) (Note: CBR opposes restricting the First Amendment rights of people who lawfully protest against our display; the First Amendment is good for everyone.)
15. In response to ‘Examine Language’ (pro-life op-ed)

BSFL Blog

1. GAP Press Release
2. Highlights of Life Week

Can you name one other pro-life project that creates 15 items in the campus paper?

Live Action has just released the next installment of their Inhuman series.  This one focuses on late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart.  Press release here.  More links here.  Entire series here.

The video below captures Carhart explaining to a patient on how he will kill her “baby” (his term).

Patient:  I feel it moving now.

Carhart: After 20 weeks, it should be. … Within an hour of the injection [into the baby’s heart], you shouldn’t feel it moving anymore.

Patient: What do you use to break [the baby] up [into pieces]?

Carhart: A pickaxe, a drill bit … (laughter).

Even Christians have abortions because they have never seen abortion.  How can they see it if nobody shows it to them?  If pro-life churches would simply show the truth, babies could be saved that are now being lost.

Only rarely do we get permission to show abortion video in a pro-life church.  Even pro-life pastors are reluctant to accept the angst that goes along with making people uncomfortable about abortion.  Even when we do get to show the video, we often have to fight for the priviledge.  When we suggest babies lives are at stake, we are called “strident,” “pushy” etc.

But we are often reminded later why we fought so hard.  We just got word this week of another baby saved because we showed abortion video during a worship service.  As reported earlier link here), CBR’s Executive Director Gregg Cunningham was able to show abortion video on a November Sunday morning at Calvary Chapel Pearl Harbor.

We just learned that at least one baby has already been saved as a result.  The mother was not only pregnant that Sunday, she had actually scheduled an abortion for the following day.  This mother had heard sermons against abortion, but had never actually seen abortion.  Gregg had debated the pastor and his wife at some length to persuade them to allow him to show our “Choice Blues” video to the congregation.  To their great credit, they finally withdrew their opposition.

When confronted with the truth, the mother became angry and stormed out of the service – but the pictures haunted her.  She cancelled her abortion appointment and sought the church’s help instead.  Had this pastor rejected Gregg’s pleas to show abortion video, this baby girl, just born, could easily have become another faceless, nameless statistic.

Please don’t withhold truth at your church.  Here is how we showed truth at Calvary Chapel Pearl Harbor:

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Abortion doctor Cesare Santangelo claims that his standard procedure is to kill the baby by severing the umbilical cord first and then waiting on the baby to die.

Hopefully we’ll get the pregnancy out intact … I cut the umbilical cord first, wait for the baby to expire, and then we do it that way.

Despite Federal law which that requires doctors to provide life-saving medical care to any born baby that survives a failed abortion attempt, Santangelo admits on tape that he will do nothing and that the baby “will expire shortly after birth.”  If born alive:

We would not help it [survive].

Santangelo works at the Washington Surgi-Clinic in Washington, DC.  See it for yourself:

GAP creates modulated conflict that draws a crowd and makes our story irresistable to the press.

Young people like the members of Bama Students for Life (BSFL) give us hope for the future.  We can’t let them down.

BSFL hosted us on the University of Alabama campus on April 6 for the Pro-Life Training Academy (GAP) and on April 10-11 for the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).  Here is what BSFL members said about it.

David DeStefanis:

Just seeing those pictures is enough to get someone uncomfortable enough to actually examine the issue of abortion and re-examine their own stance on it.
***
GAP created more dialogue and discussion about abortion than anything I’ve ever seen.
***
To pro-life people who were against GAP coming here, I asked them if they could tell me a method or tactic that could make as big an impact as GAP did. And none of them could.

Ruth Bishop:

GAP revealed to students the ugly truth about abortion; a truth that must continue to be shared for the sake of preborn children and their mothers.

Levi Crawford:

I spoke with a Jewish friend of mine in class and asked him to come and see the GAP display. He wasn’t offended, he admitted [that the preborn] is a human life and that he would never be able to support unconditional abortion again.  He walked away with a changed heart, and I am forever grateful for GAP in bringing this change about.

Joanna Robinson:

GAP is crucial for any student group that wants to start a real conversation about abortion on their campus. You can talk about abortion all you want, but until people see what abortion is, it remains in their minds an abstract idea. GAP presents abortion in a very stark and real way that cannot be ignored.
***
I have been actively involved in my pro-life campus group for nearly three years, and I have never seen an event cause a discussion about abortion like GAP. I have seen first-hand the anger it caused, but I have also seen GAP working to change hearts and minds, not over weeks or months, but over the course of minutes and seconds. We need to make sure that no college student in America graduates without seeing GAP and becoming aware of the reality of abortion.

Claire Chretien:

We forced people to think about and talk about abortion.
***
We are able to articulate the pro-life position to thousands of people, create a conversation about abortion that lasted weeks after GAP, make important comparisons between the contemporary genocide of abortion and past genocides, recruit new members, and show people the truth about abortion — that it is a gruesome, violent procedure that kills an innocent human being.

Zack Wepfer (BSFL Past President):

I can honestly say that this last week [of GAP] has been the week I am most proud of in my entire collegiate career.  I am so proud to accomplish what we did.  I cannot think of a better way to end my collegiate career.

Help us achieve the vision set forth by Joanna Robinson, who said, “We need to make sure that no college student in America graduates without seeing GAP and becoming aware of the reality of abortion.”

To be a part of that lofty achievement, please click here to make your most generous investment in the lives of babies and moms.   Young people like Claire, Joanna, Ruth, and David give us hope for the future.  We can’t let them down.  Please support our work on campus right now!

Bama Students for Life

BSFL Vice-President Claire Chretien speaks to the media. Young people like Claire give us hope for the future. We can’t let them down.

Great op-ed by Mark Crutcher (link here), commenting on the trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell.

Just one of the atrocities:

One witness testified about a baby they killed that was 12-18 inches long and that Gosnell joked about one of them being big enough to walk him home.  Another testified that Gosnell also joked about a baby that was writhing as he cut its neck saying, “that’s what you call a chicken with its head cut off.”

Destroying humanity:

The answer to why these atrocities would occur is not hard to find.  First, while the pro-life movement claims that abortion takes the life of a living human being, nobody on earth knows that better than the people who work at abortion clinics.  The lofty rhetoric of “choice” may insulate those who work in the political and public relations arena, but the day-to-day reality for those who provide those “choices” is to deal with the corpses and parts of corpses they pull out of their customers’ bodies.  It is an environment that inevitably destroys the humanity of those who choose to live in it.  In fact, look up the definition of “psychopath” and you will see a textbook description of the kind of person who is mentally capable of performing abortions.

On Gosnell’s defense:

 To paraphrase their position: these babies were taken to this abortion clinic to be killed and they were killed … so what’s the problem? … What they are saying is that, if Gosnell decapitated these babies while they were still inside their mothers’ abdomens – rather than a few feet away on a stainless steel table – then nothing illegal occurred.  To put it another way, the mere fact that these children were butchered is irrelevant as long as they were butchered in the appropriate location.  The tragedy is, under existing abortion law that is a viable position.  It also defines the abyss of moral bankruptcy that our legal system – and our nation as a whole – fell into on the day that Roe vs. Wade was handed down.   (emphasis added)

What the Gosnell trial is doing:

 It is forcing the intellectually honest members of our society to ask themselves why they can be so horrified by what this guy did to these babies outside the womb, but so accepting of the fact that the same things are done to babies inside the womb every day in abortion clinics all over the country.  Either the American people are legitimately blind to the hypocrisy and irrationality of that, or they have made a conscious decision to look the other way.  If it is the latter, they have no right to be outraged when the Kermit Gosnells of this world come along and rub their noses in it.  (emphasis added)

The real defendant:

The late Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, once stated that America would be judged on how it treats those at the dawn of life, those in the twilight of life and those in the shadows of life.  If he was right, then the ultimate verdict of this trial will not be rendered by the 12 men and women who made up the jury.  Instead, it will be revealed in the way the public responds to what they’ve been shown.  Make no mistake; regardless of anything that happened or didn’t happen in that courtroom, the real defendant was the American people.  (emphasis added)

To read the whole piece click here.

Late-term (22-week) aborted fetus. (Source: AbortionNo.org)

Caught on tape:

If [the baby] comes out [alive], flush it!

If the baby is on the floor,

Call us … we’ll tell you to put it in a bag or something.

This video was posted by Live Action.  It was recorded during their undercover investigation of a late-term abortion center in New York.

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They used to hide the fact that they are killing a baby.  More and more, they don’t bother.  Here is a video from Live Action.

NOTE: This video was recorded December 10th, 2012 not April 20th, 2012 as indicated in the video timestamp. The video recorder at time of recording carried the wrong internal date setting.

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One of the most heartening endorsements of CBR’s Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) at the University of Buffalo was a “so called” Ms. Magazine blog piece written by the “so called” Amanda Montei.  CBR Executive Director Gregg Cunningham told FAB that her op-ed piece contained the “best pro-abortion references to CBR that I’ve ever read.”

Ms. Montei was petrified that people were able to see the truth of abortion, so much so that she called for our display to be banned.  If GAP were not effective, would she be so frightened?

Here is some of what she wrote:

(referring to the arrest of Laura Curry) … Curry’s original argument: that the outrageous hate speech, thinly veiled sexist propaganda and lack of critical discussion surrounding a display that equates abortion with genocide is the most warped and cruel profanity-laced tirade a woman could be met with.

Translation:  It is hate speech for pro-lifers to say that it is wrong to kill a preborn child simply because she is unwanted and also younger and more defenseless than ourselves.  In fact, anything that upsets a leftist is to be considered hate speech and therefore must be banned.

The so-called Genocide Awareness Project—also known as the College Campus Outreach division of The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform—is an absurd misnomer. In 1997, this far-right group began touring a “photo-mural exhibit” that compares abortion to several genocides. Today, the “exhibit” continues to close down any chance of discourse on abortion on college campuses across the country.

We stimulate more discourse on abortion than any other project in the country.  What we close down is Ms. Montei’s monopoly on the brokerage of ideas on her campus.  Many people think about abortion analytically for the first time.  Ms. Montei has to defend the dismemberment and decapitation of little human beings, and this is a frightful thing to her.

GAP attempts to traumatize and confuse students into submission. GAP should not be allowed on college campuses, where intellectual vigor, critical thinking and historical accuracy are supposed to be central tenets.  (emphasis added)

Translation:  Intellectual vigor, critical thinking, and historical accuracy may be achieved only when Ms. Montei and her friends control who may speak and what may be said.

“[GAP] made the campus feel unsafe for a number of people in a variety of identity groups. This is non-trivial, and just because [GAP’s] disturbance was not sonically loud doesn’t mean its effects weren’t deep.”  (emphasis added) (quoting Cayden Mak, a witness to Laura’s arrest and now the head of the defense committee for Laura’s arraignment)

Translation:  GAP is very effective and therefore must be banned, because pictures of abortion make people who can’t defend the practice uncomfortable.

Curry is well-aware that images speak volumes, especially when accompanied by duplicitous and accusatory rhetoric.

Translation:  An image of abortion carries great meaning, especially when accompanied by convincing arguments.

This “photo-mural” is a radical attempt to shame women with scare tactics, morph the reality of abortion and co-opt the horrific legacy of genocide for religious and political dogma.

Question for Ms. Montei:  If abortion is a morally inconsequential act, then why would a picture of it make anyone feel shame?  If abortion is just a medical procedure, then why would a picture of it scare anybody?

Genocide is defined by the United Nations as a systematic effort to destroy a religious, ethnic or racial group.

The UN never defined genocide in those terms.  UN General Assembly Resolution 96, adopted in 1946, describes genocide as “a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings …” Resolution 96 goes on to say it is a crime “whether committed on religious, racial, political or any other grounds …” (emphasis added)

With abortion, the “entire human group” denied the right of existence is unwanted, preborn children.

In 1948, the UN adopted a more narrow legal definition of genocide to support prosecution in court.  For the purpose of enforcement, genocide would include “any of [a list of acts] committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group …”  The kinds of groups covered was intentionally narrow in scope.  As a concession to the Soviet Union, who feared Stalin’s mass murders might be considered genocidal if broader language were employed, the UN omitted references to social and political groups.  (The Study of Mass Murder and Genocide, Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, in The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 18)

Nor do the photos engage with the harmful rape culture of the U.S., which, as Steubenville showed us, continues to teach young boys that a woman’s body is not her own, is even a kind of plaything.

It is the abortion industry that teaches boys to believe that sex without responsibility is an entitlement.  In fact, the abortion industry routinely covers up the crime of statutory rape, so that the perpetrators can go free and the abuse can continue (www.ChildPredators.com and www.LiveAction.org).

As an educator at SUNY Buffalo, it terrifies me to think that my students are being exposed, against their will, to such inflammatory and convoluted reasoning.  The logic at work here is so faulty that one can hardly begin to engage with it.

C’mon Ms. Montei, don’t pretend this is complicated.  Just give us convincing proof that the preborn child is not a living human being.  If you can prove that, then we’ll close up shop and go home.  If you can’t find that proof — hint: it doesn’t exist because we all know that the preborn child is both human and alive — then give us some rational argument as to why we can kill some human beings but are morally bound to protect others.  Give us the one criterion that separates those whom we can kill from those whose rights we are morally bound to protect.  You are working on a PhD in English.  Surely this is not so difficult for you to do.

Professor Laura Curry arrested at U of Buffalo

University at Buffalo professor Laura Curry gained national attention when she got herself arrested for a profanity-laced tirade near CBR’s Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).  Example coverage:

• Speak Up: Taxpayer-funded Profs, Desperate to Save Abortion, Rant at Students
• Red Alert Politics: Professor calls students’ pro-life display “f**king profane”
• Huffington Post: Arrested For Profanity-Laced Tirade Over Pro-Life Display
• Ms. Magazine: Professor Arrested for Complaint Against Campus Display
• Christian Post: Profane Rant Against Student  Anti-Abortion Display

The Laura Curry Defense Committee has posted a video of the arrest (below).  The video concludes with the provocative question, “What is more profane?  The word ‘f**k’ or the message coveyed by these posters?”  Good question.  We might have said “the reality exposed by these posters,” but other than that, they are very close.

One commenter on the Ms. Magazine blog posting said much we would agree with.  Cindy Hanford wrote:

While the arrest was outrageous and the GAP project insulting to all women, so is the use of the f* word.  I find it disturbing when feminists do not recognize that the use of a word of sexual assault would be offensive to anyone who cares about the victims of sexual assault and  wants to change our society so that rape is unacceptable.  Currently, the f* word is used to say in a vulgar way, “I hope you are sexually assaulted” which no one should say to their worst enemy.  Our society also uses it as a synonym for sex, which is particularly problematic in a society that has problems distinguishing between rape and consensual sex.  In addition, most words of profanity are insults towards women’s sexuality, even when used to insult men, such as mother f*, and son of a b*.  I hope that feminists challenge the use of these words, rather than use them.  There are also more productive and effective means to protest,  If only the campus police were as busy arresting men who assault women, much less arresting all the young men on campus who use the word.